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Special Educational Needs: Reform

Asked by Matt VickersConservativeDepartment for EducationTabled Answered 19 March 2026UIN 118278

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria will be used to evaluate the success of the Government’s SEND reforms.

Answered by Georgia Gould

Every child deserves an education that meets their needs, one that is academically stretching, where every child feels like they belong, and that sets them up for life and work.

Driving inclusion in schools will improve outcomes for all children. Our reforms will restore parents’ trust in the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system. We will be investing £4 billion more over three years to support implementation, including £1.8 billion so every community has experts on hand, with £1.6 billion going directly to schools for early intervention and over £200 million to train every teacher.

The department regularly publishes statistics on pupils with special educational needs, including information on educational attainment, destinations, absence, exclusions and characteristics.

We are consulting on proposals to reform the SEND system, and will set out in more detail how we will evaluate policy after the consultation closes. We will set clear expectations of our public services and hold them to account for delivering.

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